


the apocalypse comes sooner than you think

by jugheadjones



Series: ferris bueller, you're my hero [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10737441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: the misadventures of hermione, fred and fp in high school





	the apocalypse comes sooner than you think

**Author's Note:**

> this is so ooc i dont even know what it is. i just. love my kids. i know you do too.

Hermione calls him around five on a Friday, as FP's scarfing down the last of the honey nut cheerios, dry, out of the box. He'd spent the afternoon doing yard work, enjoying the feeling of growing blisters on his hands, the taste of his own sweat in his mouth. He's on his mom's kitchen phone, the white cord wrapped lengthwise around his arm. 

“Hey FP.” He pictures her propped up on her elbows on the bed, clean and sweet-smelling as he was sweaty, her mint green princess phone tucked under an ear. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing.” He wipes the sweat off his forehead. “Why?”

“Oh, no reason. I just wanted to let you know that Freddie’s taking me to the country club dance tonight, so if you had plans to go to the movies with him, you can forget it.”

“Like hell he is, Hermione.”

“He told me on Wednesday.”

“We made our plans last weekend.”

“You haven’t seen my cleavage in this dress. Toodles!”

The phone goes dead and FP does some rapid-fire mental math. It’s 5:02pm on a Friday. Fred should be at home, waiting for his parents to get home for dinner. FP’s already stripping off his sweaty shirt, bolting upstairs for a new one.

Fred never starts his homework until after he’s done eating, meaning he’s probably tooling around with a basketball or something. The likelihood of him being in his front yard? Pretty high. _The likelihood that he’s forgotten he and FP were going to see a movie tonight?_ Fp scrubs his face quickly under the tap, wincing at the cold shock. _Even higher._ Hermione lives six blocks from Fred. FP lives nine.

Hermione might have the boobs, but Hermione didn’t make the varsity football team.

FP jumps the hedge in his front yard and runs.

* * *

 

Fred’s washing his dad’s car in the driveway as FP rounds the corner at a sprint, flannel sleeves pushed up, an old t shirt he’s using for a rag tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. It’s late in the year but the snow hasn’t hit yet, the sky cloudy but still light. FP slows to a jog, running one hand through his hair, trying to act cool and unaffected.

“Hey, Freddie, baby.” He turns his jog into a casual saunter, stowing both hands in the pockets of his jeans. No sign of Hermione, yet, thank god. Fred’s face lights up at his approach. “We still on for the movies tonight?”

Fred’s dynamite grin falters, and FP fights the urge to hit him. One hand kicks nervously up into his tousled hair. “Tonight?”

“We made these plans ages ago.”

“It’s just - I kinda got a date.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Hermione coming toward them, a definite spring in her step.

“Yeah, I bet you do.”

Fred’s whole face drops. “Hey, I’m really sorry-”

“Hello boys.” Hermione pauses neatly at the end of the driveway, giving Fred a big look up and down for FP’s benefit. He’s loathe to admit it but she’s a knockout, the green of her dress setting off her hair, her legs long and bare despite the chill. She wasn’t lying about the cleavage either. “Nice dress,” he mutters. Hermione flashes him a saccharine smile and tosses her glossy hair over a shoulder.

“You know what you’re wearing for the dance tonight, Fred?”

Fred, who had been staring slack-jawed at Hermione as if he’d never seen a girl before, seems to blink himself out of his reverie. “Sorry?”

Hermione leans up against the newly-washed car, and Fred’s eyes get so wide they look like they’re going to drop out of his head. The last thing in the world FP wants is to stand here and watch this, but he stays anyway, fuming, arms crossed. Fred, clueless as ever, doesn’t even spare him a glance.

“You look really nice.” Fred says to Hermione, and the worst part of it all is that FP knows he’s being genuine. Fred has a soft, honest way of delivering compliments when he means them, and it’s none of their fucking business if FP would do just about anything to be on the receiving end, but it still hurts to see him look at someone that tenderly.

“So do you,” Hermione purrs, hooking a thumb in the unbuttoned collar of Fred’s shirt. FP seriously considers picking up the bucket of dirty water and up-ending it over them both. She ruffles Fred’s hair, and FP sees his shoulders loosen. “You might want to comb your hair before the dance tonight, though.”

If he listens closely he can hear the gears turning in Fred’s brain, trying to remind exactly what dance he was invited to. Fred had a heart of gold, but Galileo he wasn’t.

“You remember, Fred,” FP needles him, arms folded, although his heart isn’t in it. “The country club dance. Tonight.”

Fred looks at him and FP sees a first light of panic hit his eyes. _It’s not too late,_ FP tries to broadcast telepathically. _Tell her you’re going out with me. She’ll get over it. What do you want to do eating hors d'oeuvres with a bunch of forty year olds._

“That’s tonight?” stalls Fred, and for a minute FP thinks it’s happening. That for the first time in his life he’s going to get chosen over Hermione and her soft fucking hair and her brand spanking new kitten heels.

Hermione keeps barrelling ahead. “I should be ready by seven-thirty or so, so-”

“Hermione, I, uh - I kinda made plans-”

Hermione touches Fred’s bottom lip. “FP won’t mind.”

“It’s not -” Fred’s squirming now, a blush high on his cheeks. “I kinda told Sierra we could get a shake.”

God, FP really wants to look away now. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Hermione turns to ice in three seconds flat. “So you forgot our date and made one with Sierra.”

“It’s not like that.” Fred’s puppy dog eyes are big and earnest and FP begrudgingly admits he himself might have caved. Hermione doesn’t even flinch. “I forgot about tonight, and I promised her weeks ago - She got me through that physics exam, remember, I can’t -”

“Oh, shut _up_ , Fred.” Hermione gets up off the car, hair crackling with electricity, eyes blazing. “She’s too good for you, you creep.”

“I know,” Fred ducks his head, but looks back up at her quickly, biting his bottom lip. “I’ll make it up to you, Hermione-”

“Oh, don’t do me any favours. I’ll let Hiram take me.”

“No-!” Fred drops the sponge he’d been holding. “Look, I’ll call her up-”

“And break your date with her? Creep!”

“But-”

“Forget it, Fred.” Hermione throws her hair back over her shoulder. “I won’t bother next time.”

She leaves like a stormcloud, heels clicking on the pavement, the air seeming to crackle with static in her wake. The trees rustle and he swears he smells rain. Only Hermione can whip up a storm just by turning someone down. He half expects a tsunami to come along and wreck all the work Fred had done washing his car.

Fred looks at him with big hopeless eyes, and FP steels himself to not show sympathy. He hates to prolong Fred’s misery but sometimes it has to be done. “You didn’t tell me you had a date with Sierra.”

Fred turns to him, looking miserable. “I-”

“Well, lucky you. You’ve been trying for awhile.” He kicks the bucket with his shoe, not hard enough to spill it, but enough to make him wish that he’d turned it over. “And here I was thinking I was second place. I’m not even third, am I?”

Fred’s eyes start filling up, and the worst is that he knows they’re genuine too. “Don’t be mad at me, F.”

“I don’t know how your get yourself into these situations.”

“I don’t either.”

“Call me when you want to see Reservoir Dogs.” mutters FP. “And tell me if getting to first base with Sierra McCoy was worth it.”

“FP, I-”

If he hears I love you, he’s going to break. “ _Stop_. I know. Just call me later.”

* * *

 No sooner has he got home than the kitchen phone is ringing again. He snatches it up, ready to give Fred a piece of his mind. But it’s Hermione.

“What do you want?”

“Hiram’s out of town.” she laments, sounding morose.

FP tries and fails to sympathize. “So go back and tell Fred he can take you.”

He can almost see her wrinkling her nose. “I’m not doing that.”

“Why not? He’s the one you really want to go with.”

“Dunno. If I let him get away with this, he’ll just go on thinking it's okay to make dates with all these other girls.”

“Well, you two aren’t exactly exclusive, are you? And look, he’s not trying to be a jerk.” He finds himself arguing, like he always does on Fred’s behalf, even though he doesn’t know why. “It’s not his fault. He doesn’t mean to be an asshole. He just-”

“Heart on his sleeve, I know. I _know._ ”

“Well, look, at least you’ve got a shot.” The words are bitter in his mouth. “I have to compete with all these girls.”

“Oh, what does _that_ mean?”

FP’s frustration bubbles over. “You don’t know because it doesn’t happen to you. He can claim to be bisexual, but he definitely plays favourites.”

“Well you’ve never tried wearing a dress like mine.” She sounds decidedly glum. “You can have this one if you want, for all the use i’m getting out of it.”

“Look, you string him along just as much as he does you.”

“Oh, stuff it up your ass. If you want him, you should have made your move a long time ago.”

“I _did_.”

“Yeah, and then you pushed him away because you’re scared of commitment.”

His mom is making a hang-up-the-phone face and he sighs. “Hermione, I’m hanging up.”

“Wait.” Her voice gets softer. “Why don’t you come with me.”

“Not a chance.”

“Oh, come on, F. We’ll have fun.”

“Why don’t you come see the movie with me.”

“What movie?”

“Reservoir Dogs. It’s supposed to be good.”

Hermione’s quiet for a moment. “What time?”

“Seriously?”

She sighs. “My parents will kill me. I’m tempted, though.”

“Eight.”

She’s quiet for awhile. “I’m tempted.”

FP’s call waiting is beeping, and his mom is giving him the evil eye. “Hermione, there’s another call coming in. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“All right.”

“Go ask Fred again,” he orders before disconnecting. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

Naturally. FP sighs through his nose, still feeling the ache in his lungs from the nine block sprint. “What.”

Fred’s silent on the other end. Then he blurts out. “Sierra stood me up.”

“What?”

“She cancelled on tonight.”

God, he wouldn’t switch lives with Fred Andrews for anything. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you in person.” Then he’s back to being upbeat, his voice all sun and hopefulness. “Hey, so, do you want to go after all? I know I was a jerk but I’ll buy you a double big popcorn and- ”

 _And suck my dick in the front cab of your truck_ , he wants to say, but his mom’s in the room. “You never cease to amaze me, you know that, Fred?”

Fred doesn’t seem to be paying attention. “Yeah. On the bright side, maybe Hermione won’t be mad at me anymore. What do you think?”

“Fred Andrews,” he says, “you’re a fucking disaster.”

* * *

It’s dusk now, the sky going rapidly dark. In about ten minutes they won’t be able to see the ball in front of their faces anymore. The backboard rattles as FP sinks a three-pointer.

“I’ll never get a date with Sierra again,” says Fred morosely.

“Yeah, probably not.”

“Do you think she’s going to go with Hiram to homecoming?”

“Who?”

“Hermione.”

FP checks his watch. Twenty to seven. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Fred sends the ball back up. Nothing but net. “I’ll pay for popcorn tonight.”

FP catches the ball. Holds it. Regrets what he’s about to do.

Then he says it, quick as he can, like ripping a bandaid off. “Hiram’s out of town.”

“What?”

“Hermione called me before I came over. She doesn’t have anyone to go to the dance with.”

Fred’s staring at him like he’s trying to figure out if he can believe him. Then he gives his head a little shake. “Well, we’re going to the movies tonight.”

“I mean, it’s playing again tomorrow.”

“Aw, F, I let you down enough.”

That much was true. “It’s quarter to seven.” He dribbles the ball a couple times, wondering why he’s like this. “If you call her now she’ll have time to get dressed.”

“I can’t let you-”

“I’m insisting.”

Fred’s eyes are huge. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“Just go.”

Fred grabs his collar, yanks him in, and kisses him on the lips. Right in the driveway. When Fred releases him his heart is pumping like a church organ and he has the same feeling in his stomach he gets before he’s going to puke.

Fred just grins, teeth glowing like a jack-o-lantern in the dark, shoves FP playfully on the shoulder and zips into the house like his ass is on fire.

Fred takes his breath away. And that, he realizes, walking the long way home, is the very root of the problem. 

* * *

He stays out as late as he can, dribbling Fred’s basketball down side streets when the streetlamps give him enough light to see by. He sits in a couple derelict kids parks and uproots a handful of election signs. Better to be anywhere but home lately.

He’s climbing out of the woods where they used to throw firecrackers back in the good old days when Fred’s truck pulls up.

“FP” Fred hollers out the window, light and sound spilling out onto a square of grass. “Come here.”

He does. The music gets louder as he gets closer to the car. Fred hangs out the window, silhouetted in the purple suburban night. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Movie starts in ten.”

There’s Hermione, hair up, in her brand new dress. Fred in the suit he wore to junior prom. The radio turned up as loud as it will go without disturbing the heater. FP checks his watch. Seven fifty.

“Get in.”

He gets in.

“No country club dance?” he asks as he squeezes into the backseat.

“Fuck it.” says Hermione, letting her hair out so it tumbles down her back. “We want to see this movie.”

“Roll the window up,” says Fred to Hermione. “We’re making noise.”

She does so. “Drive faster. I want popcorn.”

“Who’s getting popcorn?”

“You are.” says FP and Hermione in unison.

Fred exchanges a secret grin with Hermione in the dark, and FP thinks, peculiarly, but not for the first time, that he’s never been more in love with either of them.


End file.
